Fakenews from HuffPo

[Dill]

(12-21-2016, 12:29 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: On this we agree completely.  It's reserved for news articles that are deliberately meant to disinform.  A hard news article with deliberate mistakes, mistakes intended to influence opinion is fake news.  A hard news article that mixed editorial opinion into the story and presents it as fact is fakenews. So, exactly the kind of article I posted in the OP.
Except I didn't and everyone else in this thread, sans you, completely gets it.
You have learned well at the feet of Fred.
Please, I could pull examples all day and everyone but you knows this.
Cherry picking one point out of dozens doesn't make for a good argument.  Regardless, it's still an opinion and opinion should not be stated as fact in a hard news article.  Do you not agree with this?
Ahahaha, more cherry picking.  That is one example, hardly the most egregious one, of many deliberate errors in this article that I highlighted.  Like I said you're a true disciple of Fred, when you can't respond to the point as a whole you focus on one small example within that you feel you can squeeze a point out of.  It's sad and obvious and no one is buying it.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. 

I won't respond to the quips and smirks, but I will address two methodological points.

1. You selected a single article from the HuffPo as an example. You then further selected parts of the article to post and discuss.

This is a normal procedure in discussion. There is an economy of discourse which prevents us from discussing every website, every article, every point made in an article in every post we post.  So we identify parts we think are exemplary and focus on those. If Trump is called racist, sexist, xenophobe, and you say all claims are false, it is not "cherry picking" if I select a foundational premise for a more in-depth discussion. I am not ignoring your whole argument. If the premise falls, your argument falls. Once the question is settled regarding one of the terms, we could easily move to another.

2. Your distinction between OPINION and FACT seems at once rigid and erratic, as if everyone can see the difference between them always and right away, as if there is always a difference. If Ryan says Trump's comment fit the textbook definition of racist, it is surely a "fact" that he said it. But are you saying that fact should not be reported because you think it an "opinion"?  Is just reporting the speaker's "opinion," then, "stating it as a hard fact"?  Should a journalist add his opinion that Ryan is presenting an opinion, or is that editorializing, thereby creating fake news? (And what in the world is a "deliberate mistake"?) Seems to me there is a spectrum of "opinion" and "fact" with the result a distinction between them is not always hard and fast, especially in fast moving daily politics. In intel people speak of probability and confidence levels all the time. High confidence in a finding is rarely dismissed outright as "opinion" and never called a "fact," though it be actionable.

Any determination of a person's alleged racism or sexism or whatever will refer some action on that person's part to a definition via inference. That is called making a JUDGMENT. There can only be two questions thereafter--does the definition offer sound criteria and do the actions in question meet the criteria. Ryan made a judgment of fact in this case. One can dispute the criteria of his definition of racism or dispute that Trump referred to a "Mexican judge." Little is accomplished by claiming Ryan expressed an "opinion" and therefore what he said can't be a "fact."  It certainly can.

You want to put HuffPo in the category of Breitbart by selecting ("cherry-picking"?) an article which refers to Trump's bigotry. "See! they called Trump a 'bigot' therefore just as bad!" But nothing is proved if Trump's behavior actually fits prevailing definitions of bigotry--or racism or xenophobia or sexism. I raised this point in post #9. The temptation now, as was the case with "fake news," is to muddle the definition, expand it to cover everyone's behavior or reduce to behavior (like Klan membership) of which Trump is not accused.